Long gone are days when "crazy people" were routinely warehoused and forgotten in fenced institutions, or kept out of sight at home by embarrassed families.
Tardily, but commendably, the Idaho House has passed legislation to require insurers that cover state employees to treat mental health problems the same as physical illnesses.
Idaho is catching up with 48 other states that already require this coverage (Wyoming is holding out). If the state Senate goes along, this will be a significant step in understanding and treating mental illness as part of the total body.
Costs to Idaho ($1.9 million for the added coverage) will be paltry if lost workdays due to a wide range of disabling brain conditions are reduced.
A study by the World Health Organization, the World Bank and Harvard University found that mental illness, including suicide, accounts for 15 percent of disease burdens in developed economies.
The study found that the leading causes of lost years of healthy life are depression disorders, alcohol, traffic accidents, schizophrenia, self-inflicted injuries, bipolar disorder, drug use, obsessive-compulsive disorders, osteoarthritis and violence.
Untreated mental illness leads to absenteeism, lost productivity and even joblessness. The costs to society, and to states such as Idaho, are profound.
The House bill recognizes the obvious: Medical insurance coverage for state employees would give mental illness the same importance as an ailment elsewhere in the human body.
The next step should be for insurers that cover all Idahoans to include mental illness. That would go a long way toward bringing Idaho out of the Dark Ages of Mental Health and into the 21st century.
